Remembering Prof Humayun Azad
Demanding an expeditious end to the trial of the case relating to the murder attempt on Prof Humayun Azad, the writer’s ardent admirers yesterday recalled the brutal attack made on him eight years ago near the Amar Ekushey Boi Mela premises.

Their hands raised and holding black and red badges, several hundred people, including Humayun Azad’s wife and family members, writers, poets, publishers and fans observed a one-minute silence at the fair at 5:00pm.

They also formed a human chain before the fair’s information centre at the Bangla Academy premises in memory of the writer and to press home their demand.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the lingering trial process, they also threatened to go for tougher movement unless the perpetrators were brought to book within the next three months.

On February 27, 2004, Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh operatives stabbed the 56-year-old Azad, a professor of Bangla at Dhaka University, as he was trying to catch a rickshaw to go home from the fair, sources said.

He died from what an autopsy said was a heart attack in Munich on August 12 that year.

Noted columnist Syed Abul Maksud, one of Azad’s close friends, said a “reactionary” force tried to kill Humayun Azad, an attempt that eventually led to his death. Such a departure of the writer is a great loss for the whole nation, he said.

Writers, poets, publishers, fans and family members of Prof Humayun Azad raise their hands while observing a one-minute silence at a human chain before Amar Ekushey Boi Mela’s information centre at the Bangla Academy premises in the city yesterday demanding an expeditious end to the trial of the case on the murder attempt on the writer.Photo: STAR

“We have to continue our movement to uphold the freedom of writers to think as a way of showing due respect to the late Humayun Azad,” he said.

Poet Muhammad Samad said the act of awarding Azad with Ekushey Padak posthumously is commendable but the attackers are yet to be arrested.

Samad, also a DU teacher, said, “Although Humayun Azad is no more with us, he will remain alive forever through his writings.”

Alleging that the Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delawar Hossain Sayedee was the main instigator of the attack, Ananya Azad, the poet’s son, claimed that everything would be clear once Sayedee was interrogated.

Meanwhile, a total of 85 new books arrived at the fair yesterday. A discussion and cultural programme were held in the evening. The month-long festival, scheduled to end tomorrow, witnessed a low turnout yesterday.

thedailystar